Katie- CO 3

On Thursday I observed Victoria's elementary speaking class. The thing that stood out to me most was how she used a normal, if a little fast paced, speaking tone when speaking to the students, despite it being an elementary level class. I thought it was good for the students to get used to the native pace of English, especially since many arrived here not too long ago. Victoria's class was very relaxed and comfortable. She had a good control of her class, but was still very friendly and open with them. And even when the students did get off track, at least they were practicing speaking English! Victoria knew all of their names and made sure that each of the four students present participated in class. Another thing that was very apparent was the level difference. One of the students' speaking abilities was much higher than the rest of her classmates'. I was reminded of our recent talk about catering to multi-leveled classes, though the activity was good for all levels and the more advanced student was able to help her partner to a certain extent. The class was on track and time was allotted at the end to give them instructions on an upcoming presentation. Left over time was used for more practice. Overall, I think it was a very good class, though the small size definitely made things easier for everyone.

Katie- CP 10

Today I had planned to take Areum and Eunsung to What?Cafe, a specialty cafe with bubble tea, but unfortunately it was closed so we had to go to Starbucks instead. Starbucks, unfortunately, was full, and it was far too hot to sit outside, so we headed back to Areum's dorm room to drink our coffee and chat. We talked about the International Dinner and how the two are getting tired of going to CIES, but don't want to return to Korea. Eunsung is a fan of Japanese dramas, so we talked a lot about our favorite dramas and Japanese actors and actresses. (It seems whenever I hang out with the Koreans we end up speaking more about Japanese and Korean culture than American!) We talked a little about me going to Japan and how I should go visit them in Korea. Eunsung lived in Busan, and used to teach in Korea. She relayed a funny story to me of how she would always avoid the English speaker at their school because she couldn't speak English at the time. If and when I go to teach English in Korea I'll be sure to ask her any questions I have about schools in Korea! Areum won't be meeting with me on Tuesday afternoon because she has plans, but I look forward to seeing both of them at What?Cafe on Tuesday. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint them, as they were very happy to hear such a place existed!

Carlos-TP10

On Thursday morning, I had a tutoring session with Mohammed. He had stressed his love for Mexican food over the last couple of weeks and I had recently opened his world to Chipotle. Today, i decided to pick him up and take him to Tijuana Flats. As we looked over the menu, I helped explain to him the different ingredients that he didn't recognize, and we proceeded to orded. He didn't seem to need any help ordering his meal. When we sat down, we began discussing his presentation for next week. We briefly went over what his presentation was about and we focused on certain key points that he would need to explain more than others. I asked him to share some of the fact from his presentation off the top of his heads as if he were presenting it to me. I wanted him to do this without his powerpoint so he wouldn't have to rely on it to present his facts in English properly. This was more of an informal tutoring session in comparison to Mohammed and I's usual meet up, but next time we plan on really focusing on the presentation aspect of his powerpoint. I will focus on his speech and timing of his presentation next time we see each other.

Jung - TP7

I met up with Jaeyeon, my tutee, on Tuesday night after my CP meeting with Adel. Since we didn’t meet up last week, we spent half of our session catching up with each other. I found out she has an uncle who lives in Tallahassee. So she is still under some of the same strict rules like how she did back in Korea when she was living with her parents. Like she can’t go out of town with her friends on the weekend because she has to go visit her uncle’s family every weekend. But anyways, before I left for Tallahassee on Monday night, I went over some of the books that I have read and looked for a book that I thought that she should be able to read and enjoy. I found a book called ‘The house on Mango Street’ by Sandra Cisneros. This book is 5^th grade level reading and each chapter has about page two to three pages. So I thought it would be a good extensive reading for her. We only read the first chapter, worked on her pronunciation as much as we could and make sure she comprehends the story. She didn’t have any problem with any of the pronunciation as I thought, but she had problems with understanding the story. So we went back over and re-read the story slowly and try to help her understand it by explaining the situation of the story. I suggested to her to write any sentences down that she doesn’t understand, and then go back over it because this method had helped me to understand similar things in the past. I told her to take a book with her and read at least 2 chapters by our next meeting. Hopefully she will enjoy reading this book as much as I did.

Jung- CP9

Another conversation meeting with Adel, at Starbucks on Wednesday…

He showed up with his friend, Metib and it was bit awkward for me because half of our meeting, they spoke to each other in Arabic. Every time when they spoke Arabic to each other, I suggested for them to speak English, not only so that I can understand what they were talking about, but for them to practice their conversational English. But they used the excuse of how either they don’t know how to say that in English or can’t understand each other if they spoke in English. Adel was really hungry so I suggested that we try Pizza Hut. It was their first time eating at Pizza Hut, so I was bit worried if they would like it or not since I don’t know what kind of food they are used to. We carefully looked over the menu and talked about what we wanted on our pizza. I asked them what kind of crust they would like as I pointed a picture on the menu, but they thought I pointed to the pepperoni so they strongly refused. We ended up ordering veggie lovers with stuffed crust, good thing I only like vegetables on my pizza because Metib did not want his pizza to have any contact with any meat. Metib and I had similar taste in food; we both don’t like cheese. I grabbed some banana peppers from the salad bar and asked Metib to try them. At first, Metib refused to try them because he thought it was a banana, but when he tried it, his facial expression changed like fish back in water. I was happy to introduce them to a new experience and wonder what are next meetings would be like.

Larry - CP7

Friday-July 29th: Long wanted to go to Pensacola to see some Vietnamese friends he had met in Hue. They were doctors, medical personnel, and a visiting professor from Hue University. They had returned to Viet Nam to work for a few weeks as volunteers giving medical services to an orphanage and the rural poor. Long had acted as a translator. Some were "Boat People" with whom I wanted to talk and hear their stories. Additionally, Long wanted to buy a Toyota truck with over 200,000 miles on the "odometer" from the doctor. He wanted me to look at the truck. As usual, I tried to direct our conversations towards various topics from personal relationships to political problems as we drove to Pensacola. Long's English is advanced, but still I offered corrections and suggestion on pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. We temporarily got lost and couldn't find his friends house. Another situation to use our English and solve a problem. It was hidden in an expensive golf community, but we finally found it. I talked at length with the professor from Hue University. He taught math. His English was not too good, but he was very interested in American and Vietnamese culture. I thought it was quite convenient that our class had just reviewed cultural aspects of TEFL. He explained that he had a work visa for the US and had originally come here to get a fee operation for his very cute, very intelligent, and very engergized 4-year old daughter. She had been born with a "defect" and surgeons had performed an operation that would normally have cost $100,000 or more! He had been unable to find a job, because of his poor English, and returned to Hue. His 4-year old daughter was, however, a virtual powerhouse of English and Vietnamese! She had attended pre-kindergarden for the two years they were here. I thought how wonderful it would be to have a 4-year old girl's brain! She did a show and tell on Barbie discs, teddy-bears, binoculars, memory cards, food, things that glittered in the light, and whatever entered her sweet little head. I responded with mock surprise and amazement, and she reponded with laughter. It was fun. We all talked about Viet Nam, the United States, and the world. Eventually, we were served delicious hot bowls of Vietnamese noodle soup. They all talked in English, and I corrected as needed. The professor was delighted and later asked Long if I wanted to TEFL at Hue University. I felt good about that. We looked at the truck. Long didn't even know where to put the key to start it! WOW! He didn't even know how to back it up! Should I talk him out of buying it?

Larry - CP5

I met with my old friend Long last Saturday night, the 23rd of July. He is from Vietnam. He called me after I had returned home from another Conversational Partner meeting I had earlier that afternoon. It was Long's roomate's birthday, and everyone was going to a local club to celebrate. I decided it would be another environment and would offer plenty of cultural opportunities for discussion. It did! When we got to the club, the club bouncer tried to "husltle" Long for entrance money, because he was not from the local area. Long held his own and solved the problem by showing the man his working ID card and insisted he was local. The "bouncer" relented and let us into the club without Long having to pay. I was too old to bother with and also got a free ride. The environment was rich for conversation. We discussed the rock band and the usual cast of characters in their make believe personalities. I reminded him I was "cynical" and moved my focus to the clientel jerking around on the floor. We noticed a few old guys about my age, and I told him I felt much better as I wasn't the only guy trying to stay young. He got a laugh out of that. He said it would be ridiculous for a man of my age to be seen, in
Viet Nam, out at a club tying to "pick up" young girls. I enlarged his vocabulary with words like "chicks", "hot babes", and "cougars". There WERE some of them (cougars) hiding in the shadows behind heavy makeup and bleached hair. The music was quite good. We compared it with the ear-drum-busting-eyeball-bleeding "noise" in typical Vietnamese nightclubs. We talked again about a hotel by the sea and an American band that would bring in massive Vietnamese crowds. Long played along with my fantasy. Finally, I tired of the noise and the people and suggested we go downstairs for some oysters and a beer. No sooner had we sat down than a middle aged blonde haired beauty slid onto a barstool beside us. We offered her some oysters. She took one or two. She offered us an opportunity to get a two day free hotel in Vegas if we only attended a time share briefing. Long was confused. I said to her, "Why not." She gave me a card and urged me to call. I lied that I would, and she slid off the bar stool to join her guitar-strumming solo-singing side-kick on a makeshift stage. I explained the "scam" to Long and he thought it was a great idea! We finished the oysters. I said I had to get up early the next morning. He could stay and ride home with the birthday boy if he wanted. He decided to get a ride home with me and we called it a night. I think he learned a lot. It was a productive CP session.

Larry - CP4

Met with Dolores Buchanan on July 23rd for 2 hours. Dolores is a former co-worker at Home Depot. She is from Spain and is in her mid 50's. Actually, Dolores and I have talked for at least 100 hours over the past year. She has been disenchanted with her employment and feels she has been passed over for promotions because of her heavy Spanish accent. It admittedly is difficult to understand her. Consequently, she applied for a different position at a different business, where she could possibly use her bi-lingual ability. She was accepted. The 23rd was her last day, and we went out for lunch after we both finished working. We talked about the normal things; overseas work, on-the-job difficulties, different people at work, old age problems, and our "significant others". I had told her I needed a conversation partner and she had agreed. I therefore corrected her pronunciation, sentence structure, and grammar. We got a good laugh out of my corrections or her mistakes. I tried to give her a bit of motivation to concentrate on my corrections by telling her she would need to rely to a greater extent on her pronunciation as she would be in sales. She agreed and made corrections accordingly as we talked. We decided to go over to a local mall and walk a circuit of the mall. The purpose was to talk about things that would relate to her new job. I tried to get her to go into Victoria Secrets, but she pushed me along saying something about it being ridiculous. We talked about selling and finding customers' needs, financial selling points, appealing to personal egos, etc. It was a good two hours of conversation, and I think it did both of us a lot of good. She seemed glad that we did it and agreed it probably would help her in her new job. Her major weakness is pronunciation. She actually speaks rapidly and has a very good vocabulary. I appreciated her willingness to go with me and she appreciated my assistance. She agreed to go another time if needed.

Larry - CO3

July 28th: I completed my Class Observation of Reading 3A in room #404 fom 11:00 to 11:50. The teacher had scheduled a quiz on Inference. Some students were late, and she had me introduce myself with a brief history of my travels and mini-adventures. To fill the waiting time, she asked students a few questions related to my stories and had them answer or ask me further questions. She then collected vocabulary logs. Some students grumbled they didn't like keeping the logs, but they did like reading. She handed out new VOA blank logs for homework. She had written the day's Agenda on the board, and when the late students arrived we began the test. She carefully explained what the test was about and reviewed material and concepts on which they would test. There was an article written by Vida Volkert about an FSU graduate by the name of Scott Rogers, who had started a non-partisan online resource "Political-sushi.com" designed to reverse the trend of young voter apathy by educating them on political and social issues. Questions on the test asked for the "tone" of the article, its main idea, purpose, a definition of the word "apathy", how he planned to defeat apathy, questions on Fact or Inference, and a 2-sentence summary of the article. It was simple and effective. I read some of the student responses and was impressed by the sophistication of their answers. She showed me where she had gotten the article out of Bloom's Taxonomy (Reading Group 3). I made a mental note to download from the FSU Blackboard. The Observation was, for me, very informative.

Carlos-TP9

Today, I was able to meet up with Mohammed to help him with his powerpoint presentation on American Fortune Telling. We had started working on this project the last time we met, and he had decided to do a general overview of fortune telling due to the lack of a distinctively American version of fortune telling. It seems that he was able to use many of the resources I helped him find during our last session. He had emailed me his powerpoint the night before so that we could look over it together today. Overall, the powerpoint setup was fine, although there were a number of grammatical errors. Anytime I saw something, I would highlight the sentence with the error and ask him what he thought was wrong with the sentence. I didn't want to just correct his work for him, and wanted him to learn from mistakes. We concluded by looking everything over again, and refining certain aesthetic features of the powerpoint. We will meet again within the next couple of days so he can practice presenting in front of me.

Jung- CP8

Adel and I met up at the Starbucks in Stroz library. He said he went to watch a movie called “Bad Teacher” over the weekend with his friend, but he doesn’t remember anything because he ended up falling asleep during the movie. I laughed and told him that I tend to fall asleep every time I go watch movies. I told him I went canoeing with my friends over the weekend and about how much fun I had, but that I was in such pain the following day. He seemed really interested about canoeing and said he would like to go canoe one day. I mentioned the FSU Reservation and that as long as he brings his FSU ID with him, most of renting stuff is free for the first hour and then about $3 per hour thereafter. I showed him the FSU Reservation website and also sent him a link to the website so he can check it out with his friends later.

I told him that I'm planning on going to horseback riding with my friends soon. He shared his experience of riding horses back in Saudi Arabia and how he had ridden on a camel before. Then he mentioned how camel milk is pretty tasty, good for health, and that he prefers camel milk over cow milk. I know it’s pretty random! But it was a pretty interesting fact. We are meeting up again tomorrow and I wonder what other random things I’m going to find out and learn.

Jung - TP6

Anna and I met up for our first tutor time at the lounge, so we just spent our first day to get to know each other. She got her B.S. degree in journalism back in China and came here to get her masters in communication. I asked her if she likes to write, and she smiled and said "Only in Chinese." I told her that since I was little, I never really liked writing anything, then we both laughed. I asked her when she was going to start school (graduate) and she said she needs to go to the admissions office here at FSU because she is really confused about this whole admission stuff. FSU had told her that she needed to bring up about 100 points on her TOEFL exam; they also suggested to her to go to CIES first. I told her to feel free to ask me any questions if she has any problems. And we wrapped our tutee time because she had to go run some errands. I asked her what she would like to work on during our next tutor time and she said she would like to work on her listening skills just like my other tutee, Jaeyeon. Even though we only have 2 more weeks until end of this session, I’m looking forward to work with her J

Jung- CP7

I met up with Adel the following day, and this time we talked about school. He has mentioned many times that he would like to go to graduate school and study business. However, he doesn't feel like his English is good enough yet to take TOEFL. I asked him how he studies English at home and which language he uses more daily. He didn’t quite tell me how he studies English, but he said that he uses more Arabic than English. I advised him to start speaking in English more, even when he is only talking to his friends, because even if he doesn't speak in perfect grammar, it will help him to practice speaking and thinking in English. I shared with him my method of studying English when I first got to the States. It consisted of writing vocabulary words down on a notebook, find the meanings to them then memorize (spelling, definition) at least 5 words a day (more or less, depends on the day), and be able to use it in a sentence. I asked him try to study the way I did, at least one new word a day and he seemed really interested, saying 'okay I will!' very enthusiastically. Then he asked me to test him on our following meeting. I felt like his tutor for a second, but then I thought "Whatever, this is going to help him to improve his English." So let's see what new words he learns next week, guys.

Jung- CP 6

After my usual body tone workout on Wednesday, I went to meet up with Adel at Starbucks on Tennessee Street. Adel was there with Jordan and Jordan’s tutee. I asked Adel how his weekend/school was going and he answered back with 'good' and 'fine'; the usual short answers he always gives me. At this conversation meeting, I asked him random questions that just came to my mind. Like why Muslims don't eat pork and if he is married. With the pork question, he said if you put meat in the carbonated water, soon the bugs will float up; basically he was trying to say how pig is unclean for humans to eat. And he ended it with saying it's just how Muslims are. I wasn’t sure if he was married or not so I decided to ask him that question and found out that he is engaged. His mom had picked a girl for him and they are planning on getting married when he returns back to Saudi Arabia after his studies. Even though there were a bit of cultural differences, I'm glad I've learned little things about Saudi Arabia and can’t wait to learn some more.

Katie- CP 9

On Monday Yasuko didn't have anywhere in particular that she wanted to go, so we decided to stay in the lounge and play Scrabble. She invited Kukit, whose name I have no idea how to spell, to play with us. Habib also eventually wandered over and looked over Kukit's shoulder, lightly teasing him and occasionally trying to help. The hardest thing was of course the multitude of 3 and 4 letter words. By the end of the game none of the top left corner of the board had been filled. I tried to use some longer words, and also at some points ended up teaching them a few new, easy vocabulary words. Kukit got stuck a few times so I tried to help him out a little by placing a tile on the board and asking him to finish the word with one of the tiles he had left. There were a number of times that words were misspelled or I had to look them to see if they were actually words, and at one point Habib made a bad word when Kukit got stuck, which I told Kukit not to remember and assured him that he would never need to know. I think it was a very challenging game for them, but they appeared to have a lot of fun. Yasuko and Habib seem eager to play again next Monday. I think next time I might try to take score, which I refrained from last time so as not to discourage anyone or lose focus on the game itself of creating words. I think it is a fun game for practicing English, and it seems to be an okay game for students of mixed levels of English to a certain extent. Unfortunately we started cleaning up at the end before I remembered to take a picture, but I'll try to remember to next time!

Katie- TP 8

I met with a new tutee for the first time yesterday and met up with her again today. Her name is JiYeon and she's a Korean woman currently on break from CIES, much like my other tutee, Jia. JiYeon is possibly my lowest level tutee, but she still communicates pretty well and often corrects herself while speaking without me needing to help her. When asked she told me she would most like to work on her listening and speaking, so when we meet we simply have conversations about various things in English. From our conversations I learned she is married and has two children, an 8-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son. She majored in Chinese, so she forgot a lot of her English after she graduated high school in favor of concentrating on Chinese. JiYeon has lived in China, where she sent her daughter to a Canadian kindergarten, and has been in the US for about a year. Her daughter goes to an elementary school nearby where they live, so her English is much better than her Korean. JiYeon told me that sometimes her daughter gets tongue tied and pauses a lot when she tries to tell her mother things in great detail because her Korean vocabulary isn't high enough to tell her mother everything she wants to say. JiYeon want to be able to build good relations with her daughter's friends' parents, to make things easier for her daughter in school. I suggested she try to engage in simple conversation at first and eventually invite her daughter's friends over for play dates to express her good intentions. We also talked about the issue of Korean and Chinese parents putting a lot of pressure on their children to do well in school, especially English. She doesn't want to put so much pressure on her daughter, but when they return to Korea she is worried her daughter will feel isolated if she cannot do things as well as the other students because she wasn't pressure as much to learn things quickly and well. JiYeon also goes to the classes held at the public library to study English, but because she has a 2-year-old son she doesn't have much time at home to study English otherwise. She expressed the desire to try to read English books and watch English shows, but told me that she just doesn't have time. Due to her husband's company, JiYeon will move back to Korea for two years after June of next year, and then will move to China for a couple of years. I think it will be a little difficult for her children, but she seems to be coping with it well and plans to send her children to American or Canadian schools in China. We will meet again this weekend.

Katie- TP 7

On Saturday morning I went to see the new Harry Potter movie with JongOuk and his friend SungJin. It wasn't the listening practice I had in mind, as I had wanted to watch a movie with him at his or my place so we could pause it at intervals and cover any uncertain parts, but I couldn't resist finally getting to see the new Harry Potter movie, and in real life you can't always pause or ask people to repeat things for you! It was a very good movie, and we all enjoyed it, but afterwards when I asked JongOuk how much he understood, he said only about 10%. Afterwards to talked about parts that he didn't understand. They main thing that confused him was the horcruxes. He didn't understand why they had to destroy them, or why no one had tried to destroy them before. I explained these to him as best as I could. Luckily with a movie like Harry Potter, even if you're not sure of everything going on, the entertainment value is high, and since it's a movie you can pretty much tell what's going on through the movie itself. The biggest issue was possibly the English accents, which weren't always very clear to him, and the amount of "magic" vocabulary. I remembered how Francis mentioned the lack of word for wand in French and how they simply called it a stick, and how difficult these words must be for them. While this listening practice may not have been the best for learning, one cannot expect to improve without practice and any practice is better than none! Or so I'd like to think. ^^;;

Erin - TP 11

I just came home from Maria's house and I am glad to say that I enjoy our tutoring sessions more and more everytime I go. Now when I arrive, she has started giving her children something to do or kicking them out to go to her friend's house, so that they are not there to distract us when we are trying to study. For the first hour and a half that I was there, we worked with the Eurotalk program, first studying food, then household items, and then how to tell time.
For the most part, she needed help with pronunciations, although there were a few words that she didn't quite understand or kept forgetting the definition of. However, when it came to telling time, she struggled a lot...especially with phrases such as "quarter til" and "half past". So it took me a while to explain this to her, but she finally seemed to get it.
We ate another wonderful Cuban dinner right after that. This one was very special because her friend, whom I had met a couple of times before, told me his story of how he got out of Cuba. He has a very strong accent, but he speaks English very well for the most part, so I understood everything...and his story was very moving. I was incredibly interested in what he had to say...and how he survived when arrived with absolutely nothing...and now I have the strongest desire to visit Cuba.
All in all, I feel that Maria is becoming more and more motivated to study English whenever she can and is slowly becoming more confident with my encouragement, and I feel that we are both learning a lot from each other.

Katie- CP 8

I met with Areum on Tuesday this week and last week, as usual. It is quite clear to me why we should write blogs soon after we meet our language partners, as I once again do not remember what I spoke to Areum about two Tuesdays ago. She did have many questions about colloquial expressions, as usual, though, and I did let her know that if she ever wanted to hang out on the weekends to feel free to call or email me and we could do something.

As it turns out, Nic invited me to the beach with Carolina, Jordan, and some CIES students, and Areum and her friend EunSong happend to be there as well! We all had a lot of fun at the beach. Although Areum and EunSong were worried about getting sunburned and were reluctant to go into the water at first, we had a great time splashing around in the ocean and laughing about misadventures with a blow-up pool chair. Though I left the beach a little earlier than them, it seemed like everyone had tons of fun.

This Tuesday we talked a little bit about the beach and reviewed some of the many notes Areum has on her iPhone. I praised her for reviewing her notes, a very good practice to have, as I usually write things down and just forget about them. I also invited Areum to please keep in contact with me after she goes back to Korea so that she can continue to practice her English so she doesn't forget it as quickly.

We have plans to go to What?Cafe together with some of her friends on Sunday. She wants to try boba tea, and I recommended What?Cafe to her as it is a specialty cafe for boba teas and slushies.

Derobbio tt 3

Larry and I were the first to give our culture class. We choose to follow a lesson plan template, but we were of course very pressed for time. We agreed that we wanted to discuss all variations of culture and hastily prepared our class. It started out a little slow to begin with and the students seemed to be almost as shy as us. Luckily Larry had planed out some great vocabulary to begin with and a small quiz that got the students minds moving. One thing I noticed right from the beginning was that the students are very quick to ask questions. It often helped initiate conversation, and also kept me on my toes. Being better prepared would have been quite beneficial to answer all of our curve-balls. One question I had difficulty in particular with was explaining the definition of Biases. In the future I will definitely check the vocabulary I choose to use, not just as vocabulary, but also in context within handouts and stories. Once we started the activity the class seemed to be really enjoying themselves which helped boost Larry and I's confidence levels. I found myself learning a lot from each individual student, and insight to many new things I was unaware of. Each student had many things they wanted to share and we made sure everyone had a chance to speak. Although the entire activity didn't play out exactly by the rules, the categories and overall theme remained. Some students decided to pick out a particular subject they wanted to tell us about, and they also asked questions about our culture they were unaware of, or had thrown the off. We did run out of time pretty abruptly and had no particular closure to the lesson. In the future I would definitely keep an eye on time management, and have a better way to bring the class back together and have a final review of the lesson. Overall, for the first time teaching, I think it went fairly well and made me aware of some of my strengths, and weakness' and gave me a better idea of what I should place more emphasis on, and vice versa when teaching.

Brian TP3

Because my tutee wants to improve his listening skills, I printed out an essay from This I Believe to do a comprehension task. The essay was written by John Cromwell, an actor, producer, director, and winner of a Tony Award in the 1950s. My tutee, Mr. J, said when he listens to English language television shows or movies, he often listens to individual words and rarely gets the gist of what's being said. He misses the main idea, he tells me. Well this is becoming a thing of the past because he not only answered my questions successfully, but also answered speculatively on an aspect of the essay where there was no clear answer.

Brian TP4

Subway restaurants have defeated my tutee. Mr. J walks in salivating, ready to chow down on a five dollar foot long when lo and behold, he can't understand everything being said to him. If he goes to the same store I go to when I'm too impatient to stand in line at Publix, then he gets the same blonde with the raccoon eyes who seems to be there all day everyday against her will that pronounces “for” like “fer.” Snow calls it reduced pronunciation, but I wonder how or if this is different from accents? I created a dialogue between a Subway employee and a customer, and added “git” for “get,” “fer” for “for,” “ya” for “you” and so on. I'm unsure how useful Mr. J found my dialogue to be, but I printed out a picture menu from Subway's website, so that he may at least know what he wants to order before arriving there.

Carolina TP4

When I met with Eunsung for the first time a few weeks ago I picked her up from CIES and took her to Black Dog Cafe at Lake Ella. I introduced her to my favorite drink there: the Black Dog. It's like a frappucino at Starbucks but better (in my opinion, and now Eunsung's!). She was so in love with it every time we meet she wants one! We went over words that she's been having problems pronouncing and then I made her just talk about her culture and home back in Korea. Whenever she had trouble finishing her sentence I would help her break it down word by word and then get her to repeat it again. I got her to discuss her religion, Buddhism, and the differences between the two kinds of Buddhists in Korea. When I told her that I was studying Buddhism and had been to services she was so excited she literally couldn't form a sentence. She finally said, "I would never have fathomed that an American could be Buddhist." Her vocabulary is so good!! She's constantly surprising me just like I am her. After our tutoring session I took her over to Quarter Moon and took her shopping--she was only used to Governor Square and really loved that there were cute boutiques here in Tallahassee. I'm going to take her to Urban Thread sometime soon and see how she likes it.

Erin - CP 7

Tea time yesterday was incredibly fun. While I was waiting for my conversation partner Antonia to show up, I chatted with Daniela about restaurants and family reunions...because I had a few questions about a somewhat-awkward family reunion that my co-workers and I attended a few days ago. When Antonia showed up, we talked about how her week had been and how her day had been, and she told me about how stressful it was because they are taking the TOEFL examinations. She asked if I was going to the dinner Friday and told her that, regretably, I can't because I have to work. When I asked her what she was going to bring, she said spicy tofu, which is apparently very popular in Taiwan, along with rice and noodles. I was curious if she ate meat, because most people I know who eat tofu only do so because they are a vegetarian. She assured me that she does eat meat, just not beef....although she immediately told me that it was not for religious reasons. Apparently, farmers in Taiwan own cows, but it is because they are very helpful in laying the rice in the rice patties. Therefore, cows are seen as a helpful farming companion instead of as food. A few other CIES students came over to our table and started to play BS with us, which we explained to Antonia. After that, Muhammad explained to us how to play the Winking Game, which is apparently very common in the Middle East; he had a little difficulty describing the rules, but I think he did a great job, considering he was doing it in his second language. We all figured out how to play and had a really great time, and even made some small talk on the side.

Jaime CP5

A couple of Wednesdays ago I met up with TEFL, Saudi, and Kuwaiti friends at Aladdin’s shisha café. The night consisted of several interesting conversations that really struck me.
First of all, when I talk to Hassan and company 9 times out of 10 I am left trying to defend that I have some sense of normality. For example, all of the guys will tell you, if you go to the Gulf countries, should you see nothing else, go to Abu Dhabi. Go to the Emirates. This is emphasized with a tour-guide-like zeal. In turn I excitedly told them, “Abu Dhabi hosts the world jiu-jitsu tournament!” Video followed with a short explanation and then …silence. Although far too polite to say it, the look says it all. “Jaime you go to Abu Dhabi for the grandeur, for the culture, and for the pomp… not to roll about on the ground wrestling.”

Since then I have tried to explain to them different martial arts that I am perfectly capable of playing on the same soccer field as them. I’ve explained the concepts of waterskiing, tubing, wakeboarding, and kiteboarding. I showed the guys the scars on my legs from a ‘kitemare’ incident a couple of years back. The guys have accepted the assault on traditional gender roles with a fair amount of grace, but I am always at a loss for words when they ask how many women are like me. “Many. And no Hussain, I cannot give you an exact percentage.”
As the other end of the table began a conversation about dating, Hussain talked to me about his wife. Despite his quiet, traditional ways, Hussain is a romantic. He told me the story of how he met his wife, I was shown pictures, he proudly told me of his daughter, of Kuwait, and of his family. He told me he was excited that his wife and daughter would be coming at the end of summer, and that he wanted to plan a trip for them. We talked about places to go to, and Abdullah showed me clips of a karate style he used to study.
As I was leaving Albraa challenged me to a soccer game, asking whether I thought I could keep up with him. Without missing a beat I answered ever so sweetly that if he ended up being that much better than me, then I’d simply knock him down. We all laughed, but Albraa has yet to invite me to a soccer game…

I think that expressing my tomboyishness has also pigeon-holed me with the guys. After talking about how I liked martial arts Hassan told me, “uhh-huh. [pause] It would seem like you all are good at something. Camille, she is good at singing. And you, [pause]you are good at fighting.”

Last Thursday they were a little surprised that I was capable of wearing a dress and looking a wee bit better than busted. We all attended Camille and Brian’s culture class on improv. And Hussain, clever bugger that he is, waited for me to improv a scene with one of the Ali. Camille asked for scene suggestions, and without missing a beat Hussain went in for the set up. “Fight scene!”
Hussain was giggling. GIGGLING. (He’d probably insist it was a chuckle…) Ali went in to hit me, I thought he was being serious- and had expected me to be a girl about it and run, faint, or such- Alas, no. I went in for the block and was surprised to see the shock register on his face when I made contact and blocked his forearm. I heard Hussain roaring in his corner and chanting “kick him! Kick him!” Poor Ali. I figured it was best to end the scene with him beating me, so that he could preserve his masculinity in front of Hussain and the guys.
After class, I accused Hussain of setting me up. He grinned and with a fake air of innocence said, “Who me? No no no no no.”

Carlos-TP8

This morning, I was able to meet up with Dongseok during tea time. I had tried multiple times to meet with him over the weekend but he was very busy with various things, including helping his girlfriend Anna move furniture. I complimented him for being a good boyfriend before we began. As usual we began with just having a normal conversation, Dongseok armed with his notepad. More than any of my other partners, I am able to really push Dongseok and he is the most receptive of corrections. He even stops and corrects himself when he feels like he is being too proper. We were able to discuss Saturday's dinner, and he explained how grateful he was and how enjoyable the get together was. We eventually began to discuss his options after this CIES session. I'm beginning to realize that many of the students want to get out of CIES as soon as possible, not because it is a poor program, but because of finances. Dongseok is looking into various Universities that his S. Korean University offers exchange programs too. We ran through each one and I asked him what he really wanted out of the school he chooses (size, type of city, tuition, etc). I was able to really give him some insight towards the different schools. What really helped him was my insight in the different American cities and regions in comparison to FSU in Tallahassee. He had never really thought about the type of cities these schools were located in and how different college life could be without considering the location of his future school. We came to the conclusion that he wanted to go to a big school in a city no smaller than Tallahassee. This immediately eliminated many options, but I was able to recommend him to either University of California Long Beach or University of California Fullerton as possible options. We even google mapped a number of campuses to get a feel for certain cities and compared many of them to each other. I feel like I was really able to help Dongseok today, though it was more focused on his future than English speaking. At the same time though, I was able to continuously listen for grammatical errors in Dongseok's speech which he appreciated.

Jung- CP 5

After observing Mrs. Maria's class on Tuesday, I went to the lounge because I thought I was supposed to meet up with someone but no one was there waiting for me. But I ended up sitting with Nic, Dongseuk, and Anna and chatted with them. Dongseuk and I didn't get a chance to meet up last week due to our busy schedule so it was good to catch up with him. Since our last meeting, he had gotten a girlfriend, Anna, he seems really happy, and went to New Orleans with his friends over the weekend. Anna suggested that we should play a game, and she suggested “Truth or Dare”. Everyone who heard what Anna said laughed except Dongseuk, who never heard of “Truth or Dare”. Nic and I explained what the game is about, but Dongseuk still didn't get the whole point behind it because we kept it g-rated. I guess we lost Dongseuk’s interest because he often talked to his other friends who were sitting in different table. We are meeting again next Thursday; hope it will be a better turn out.

Jung- CO 3

My last class to observe...

I went to Mrs. Maria's listening class on Tuesday. There weren't that many people in the classroom, only seven students, just waiting for the instructor to come. When Mrs. Maria came in, I introduced myself then she nicely introduced me to the class and had all the students introduce themselves to me. They each said their name, where they are from, and what they are studying. Most students who were in that class came to America, planning on getting their master's degree. Last time in class, they had watched a movie called 'Forrest Gump' and Mrs. Maria had each student to observe on a character. So today, she asked the students about their opinions on their characters. While they were commenting on the characters they observed, she complemented them by saying 'you're doing well' or 'good point'. She also added more information of their characters if they had missed any. This activity helped them with their listening skills and speaking skills as well. After discussing the characters from the movie, she wrapped her class by reminding the students how they will practice TOEFL exam tomorrow so be prepared. When the class was over, I went up to her and thanked her for letting me observe her class. I found out that this Friday was going to be her last day teaching here at CIES to go teach at USF. I’m glad that I got to observe Mrs. Maria's class and I feel like I learned one more thing that will help me teach in the future.

Suzanne-CP 4

Saturday night, us Americans returned the favor done to us by our Saudi and Kuwaiti counterparts by hosting a cook-out at Camille's house of love. Almost all of the students from the TEFL class came, as well as our usual pack of Arab friends, some outside friends, and a group of Asian CIES students that I hadn't previously met. There was more than enough food for everyone, which ended up being really great - homemade mac and cheese, Doritos salad, potato salad, chips, cookies, hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, you name it. The little food battle that Albraa and I had started with each other was easily decided - the Americans win the most delicious food prize! To be fair, we had a lot more help! The Arab guys brought their own meat, bought from the mosque and blessed via halal, which was a cultural experience for us, having those kinds of restrictions. Conversation was easy and free between people from all the differing cultural backgrounds. Even more, a little ongoing language lesson was happening on the chalkboard on Camille's wall - different words and names in English, as well as Arabic, Japanese and Chinese, in some cases. At one point, the Arabs (I apologize for generalizing all of them this way, it's just the easiest way to talk about all eight) got their hookah from home out of the car and we all sat around and enjoyed a little shisha comfort. Personally, I took a lot of enjoyment in watching everyone interact, my friends from outside class, my friends in class, and my foreign friends, even when I wasn't.

Over the course of the night, I talked the most with Albraa and Hassan, two, as I've come to understand, very different souls. Albraa, for instance, likes to joke around and poke fun at his friends; he's a classic charmer who has an air of invulnerability. He seems to appreciate interacting with us, though he shows it less readily. Being my conversation partner, I try to focus on talking to him as much as I can, but sometimes it takes a lot to open him up. We hung out a lot Saturday night, though, talking just the two of us, about subjects ranging from what we all do on Friday nights (he told me a story about getting drunk...a topic which ties into what I'm going to say about Hassan in a moment) to the food. Later, I ended up talking to Hassan a lot. This conversation proved very interesting. Him, Francis and I got started talking about the etiquette and manners of our different cultures. We asked him if we ever did anything that they found offensive and that if we did, to tell us, since we wouldn't otherwise know. Hassan then got to apologizing about some of the things that were brought up in conversation during our hookah-fest at Aladdin's a few weeks back. He seemed concerned that the conversation about dating, romance, sex and marriage that went on between me, my roommate, Albraa and Dary was inappropriate and he was worried that we were viewing him and his friends in a negative light. Francis and I jumped to assuage his worries, explaining that we thought it was okay to talk about those things and were open and willing to discuss them. He said he thought we might say that even if we felt differently, and we did our best to convince him that we would be honest if we ever did feel uncomfortable, and to tell us if any topic made him feel strange. I wonder how much of his worries have to do with the culture he was raised in - do women in Saudi Arabia speak their own minds so readily? I knew at the time that we were treading an interesting line, but I explained to Hassan that all of our open-mindedness and willingness to get deep meant that we could all learn from each other. He's very different from Albraa in this way - where Albraa seems to relish the freedom America gives him, almost to an overindulgent degree, Hassan seems to want to maintain the balance his maturity grants him. Interacting with both people has been a truly enlightening and enjoyable experience for me.

Suzanne-TP 2

I had my second tutoring session today with Mohammad. Mohammad is a fairly advanced student who doesn't seem to have too much interest dedicated to classes at CIES, so I was worried that sparking his interest would be difficult. However, our session went incredibly well. Last time, we talked about his listening class, taking notes and his difficulties writing enough and writing quickly, so I did a little preparation for this lesson to help him overcome those difficulties. Together, we went to the TED website and I asked him to find a video that interested him to watch and take notes on. Then we both watched it and each took notes separately, in our own distinct ways. Then we compared the two papers. I showed him the importance of key words, being able to go back and add notes, and abbreviations. The abbreviations part of the lesson specifically seemed to help him. We found a few websites with common English abbreviations and started a mini-library to keep referring back to, including the abbreviations for "different," "important," "government," "maximum," "minimum," etc. I explained how being able to use abbreviations fluently would help the speed of his note-taking and he really latched onto the idea, asking me if him and I could start our own abbreviation dictionary, a suggestion I delighted in agreeing with. I suggested a few things he could do at home to help his note-taking skills - for instance, when he watches American movies, trying to write down a few things being said or a couple of plot points, just to keep practicing without doing homework. Then I asked him if he wouldn't mind watching another TED video of his choice and taking notes, using the abbreviations we went over during the lesson. He seemed eager and willing to do both.

The last few minutes, Mohammad expressed his concern with me about his skills speaking English. He started by asking me how he sounded, if I understood him, etc, which struck me as interesting, considering how high a level speaker he is. He said that even though he knows he's speaking English, he can never tell if the person he's speaking to understands him, and sometimes there are lulls or breaks in the conversation which make him feel awkward or unknowledgeable. He also said that he sometimes has difficulty starting a conversation because beyond the typical "how are you," he isn't confident that his messages are being portrayed. I explained to him that, first of all, his speaking skills were very good and that he needn't worry about not being understood. Second, I tried to show him that as long as two-way communication is happening, even if it's stilted and awkward, he's doing good things for his English. I said that just being fearless enough to try means a lot and that it just takes practice. He was really appreciative of my advice, telling me over and over how thankful he was and that he was sorry to bother me with it. I told him how thankful I was because he was such a good student and that his concerns were helping me learn to be a better English teacher.

Suzanne-OB 2

Last week, I observed my second class at CIES - Jennifer's speaking class. It was quite an interesting and different experience this time around than the first time. For starters, the class was comprised of much lower level students (which was what I was aiming for in the first place) so the pace and fluency of the classroom time was affected greatly. The class I observed in particular - a speaking class - was laid out as a research/debate over vegetarianism - the pros and cons of being vegetarians. The class had to spend some time in the computer lab researching vegetarianism and pick a side, then use facts and opinions to argue for or against during the following class period. Jennifer made sure to insist on their finding of vocabulary words that they didn't already know and their writing them down for discussion later.

The class as a whole seemed to have a little trouble with the assignment. Many students asked Jennifer over and over what they were supposed to be looking for during research, though once they got into it, most seemed to be on the right track (as I noticed when I was looking over shoulders in the computer lab). The trouble seemed to be with the directions - though Jennifer explained them multiple times, perhaps a demonstration of how to use the internet and search engines to research, or a set of written directions, would've helped their understanding of what to do. When we got back to class, Jennifer asked students to bring up vocabulary that they didn't understand, and the conversation about vegetarianism turned rather medical. Terms like "kidney failure" and "dementia" were thrown around, and while I thought that her efforts to have students learning new vocabulary on their own were valiant, it seemed to be problematic in practice. Students just copied down any and all words they didn't already know and this made for an awkward, slightly irrelevant discussion. Lower level classes don't need to be talking about dementia and it seemed like a lot of students were tuning out because of a lack of interest. The discussion itself went smoothly - students felt comfortable in class and with Jennifer, enough to answer questions with ease and willingness. Jennifer made sure to repeat after each statement so that the entire class understood and urged them to form their own thoughts instead of simply reading the facts that they found. Again, though, some students seemed confused, and my thought was that a demonstration of how to formulate an argument would've served them all well.

I thought Jennifer handled herself well in a class that was definitely having some difficulties. I imagine it would be really difficult when lulls in the conversation occur or when students aren't understanding your directions. I think that the class would've gone a little smoother if Jennifer had written out the plan as well as dictated it orally, as well as demonstrated exactly what she wanted her students to do in terms of the debate.

Brian CO1

My first class observation was in a 1A speaking class. One tactic I took away from this class is how the teacher told them why they were doing this lesson, then later reminded them again midway through. The students were learning the English names for their body parts (not the naughty ones, unfortunately) and how to describe problems they were having with said parts. A role play ensued where one student played a doctor and the other, the patient. Near the end of the lesson, a student suggested to another that they never pursue a career in the medical field and we all had a laugh.

Brian CO2

My 2nd class observation was in a Group 4 listening class. I witness what might be considered a teacher's nightmare, that is, the students asking tough questions and not completing the intended lesson plan. The tough questions came once a student said, “I couldn't catch what he said.” This was in reply to a lecture the class listened to previously. Somehow the conversation morphed into how “wouldn't” and “couldn't” is used under a context of ability, or understanding, or desire. The teacher tried his best to answer their questions but this brought about more questions to which he finally said he'll make a note of them, do an investigation, and give them an answer soon.
Students were asked to answer questions with compete sentences. Lastly, the teacher gave the correct answers to a multiple choice quiz, and went over why the incorrect answers were – incorrect. Very thorough, me thinks.

Brian CO3

On my final class observation, I attended Wayne's grammar class except the Director was subbing for Wayne. Not-Wayne is quite the clever one. He used my tardiness to get the students speaking and also to show me that any situation can be used as a point of instruction. Well on the latter point, this may not have been his intent? Not-Wayne asked the students to share how their cultures viewed punctuality. Each one said being on time is important, but half of them said you wouldn't face any consequences of any kind in their countries.
To get down to the brass tax of the lesson, the students had a quiz on prepositions and articles. I took it myself and thought the design of the quiz would be useful to share with my future students.
Some teaching tactics one can take away from this class is to correct the students along the way, and to ask the students to reply with full sentences; especially for Group 2 students like the ones I observed.

Carlos-CP10

On Saturday night, a group of us were finally able to return the favor to our Arabic friends by hosting our very own dinner for them. We tried to keep it American as possible as far as food. All the TEFL kids pitched in to bring food or supplies for the dinner. Camille and her roomates were great hosts, cooking the bulk of the meal and helping prepare the whole dinner. We had a grill in the back going with hot dogs, burgers, and corn on the cob. Our CIES friends brought their own meat from the mosque that many of them only eat. Inside, there was a spread of french fries, macaroni and cheese, doritto salad, fruit salad, among other things. All in all, we had more food than we needed, which isn't a bad thing at all.

Most of our CIES friends that had us over for dinner were there, as well as a number of our Asian CIES friends. Three of my partners were there as well and I was able to spend time with all of them. A number of Camille's friends were there and everyone really meshed well with one another. These are the experiences you truly cherish. We were able to break all walls during these weeks together and I truly consider these CIES students as friends, not assigned partners.

My favorite part of the night was jamming with Rashed and Abdullah. Both have a strong interest in guitar and I've really been able to connect with both of them through music. Rashed is continuously wanting to play and I've been able to teach him some simple licks that he can build off of. Abdullah is slowly beginning to improve, though it took awhile for him to open up because of how timid he was about playing in front of others. Abdullah is a natural and I've tried to really push his limits in both his skill and confidence. By the end of the night, we were able to play a song together and we were able to work on certain aspects of his style that will help him improve. I will continue to try and help him with his music before I move back to Orlando.

Jeff Dinert TP6

Nakjoon and I met Wednesday, as it is our day now, at the Starbucks again, and we went over a different essay this time about A green economy, and whether it is viable to be a substitute for fossil fuels in the future. It was a good essay, short, choppy, some missing articles, but also some very well put together sentences, and I was able to give him a website for the purdue writing lab, and also a sheet of information from MLA about citing as well as the information for the writing lab in the Williams building as a resource for him in the Fall for help with his work. This time, and this was an essay for homework, a first draft I think, the essay was much more focused and even another paragraph longer, with a well placed quote, and good eveidence for his points about having to find an integrated green fossil fuel economy. I also heloped him check some of the ideas in his writing and asked if he thought these were consistent or not from what the English demonstrated, and he said that in fact a sentence that said something "was" needed to say something "was not" instead to make sense. I said Nakjoon, "You got to revise my man if you want to be a grad student." Nakjoon said he forgot but then really explained that it took a long time to write this and didn't get around to it before he forgot and emailed it to his teacher, so I forgave him, and then bought him a juice. We went over some of his homework from class, a paragraph about finding and correcting the errors in a sample paragraph, and he wanted to know why some things were marked wrong and we spent a while going over the mistakes, and me asking now which sentence sounds better to you? Which one sounds more like the Tom Clancy books you love? It is a good measure to say them in your head, or reread them before you just try to merely translate first. He thought that was an interesting observation, and I said I'd look at his this I believe paper this week, and have a couple of real grad essays from my friends with grad degrees for him to look at and keep for next time.

Jeff Dinert TP5

Nakjoon and I worked on Wednesday, July 13th together, and met at starbucks on the Northside of town. He had sent me an essay he had written in an English class of is in Korea that he never had critiqued and wanted me to evaluate it and give him feedback. The essay was on the need to reform public administration and government in South Korea. It was a short essay and a subject that he obviously knew very much about, but it lacked a continuity of form, and had too many ideas for only a 800 word paper. We went over the grammar and I gave him options for sentences, asked questions about his usage and asked him to explain why one sentence was better than another? He knew the answer when he saw a more correct example, at least grammatically, but as with the form of the essay what I spent most of the session trying to tell him is that papers in our system, especially if very short, require focus and details about one main idea, usually a subset of another bigger arena, but they have to be focused. His essay was well thought out but jumbled and I said basically either make it a 5-8 page paper, or hone it down to one of the ideas within. He chose to hone it down, and when he corrects it or another essay and sends it back to me I'll post both for inspection. I think if he understands to keep his papers full of detail for each point and if short to be focused by one main point, instead of something broad like government reform, than we achieved a lot in that hour and a half.

Camille-TP6

Last Thursday, Brian and I taught a culture class on Comedy in the Western world and how its roots are found in the science of improvisation. The class had a pretty big turnout, but throughout the lesson 3 students left. With this class, we showed various videos starting with a Saturday Night Live clip of the Lawrence Welk show starring Kristen Wigg. After that, I explained with improvisation was and how it is the root of all comedy. Brian and I led many improvisation games including: Three-line scene, three headed monster, sound effects and party quirks. Each of the games had a video model from Whose Line is it Anyways? as well as a physical example performed by Brian and me. With these examples I figured the students would be able to understand and complete the activities seamlessly, unfortunately that was not the case. The students had to be re-explained the games and would break many of the game-rules. But even for Americans, the art of improvisation is extremely confusing. I stressed the importance of participating in these games because you get to be whatever you want to be when playing improv. Also, the students were able to effectively practice their English without even realizing it. Through these exercises, the students had to listen and quickly respond to whatever the prompt was, as well as try out some acting skills. Overall, the culture class was seemingly enjoyable by the students and the feedback was all positive. I am glad I was able to share with the students something that I have learned and performed for the past 3 years.

Camille-CP6

On Saturday night, I hosted an International cookout at my house which was EXTREMELY fun! Alot of the CIES and TEFL students were there along with whoever anyone wanted to bring. The party ended up having a huge turnout and was a success. Many of my friends, who had never interacted with such an assortment of people, were educated and amazed by the various CIES students. Some were from China while a large group of the Arabic students attended. For dinner, we decided to have an "American-style" cookout with hotdogs, hamburgers, deviled eggs, (thank you Katie!) homemade mac and cheese, fruit salad, Doritos Salad and other various Americanized choices. I have a chalkboard wall in my house, so many of the attendees learned how to the write their names in either Chinese or Arabic. Also I noticed that nobody segregated themselves and many people were learning about other lifestyles and cultures. My conversation partner, Abdullah did not eat any food which was very upsetting to me because the cookout was at my house and he is my designated partner :[ But everyone else seemed to enjoy the food. After dinner, Hassan set up the rather large hookah that he owns and more than 15 people joined around the hookah to converse. After the hookah, Hassan made Saudi Arabian coffee for anyone who wanted it. I learned that the coffee was only consumed in small portions after I requested a large cup because I was so exhausted from cooking/cleaning all day. As the party dwindled down, I found Carlos, Abdullah and Rashid (sp?) out on the front porch playing guitar. I was so excited to finally hear Abdullah play the guitar because I knew that he played but he had always been too shy to play in front of me. I was thrilled to see that Carlos was able to connect with him on a musical level. Also, Abdullah gave me a cd of Arabic songs I had requested since the first week we met. I was so happy to see that he had remembered and the cd is absolutely wondering. I will post pictures of this awesome night at a later date!

Camille-TP5

On Wednesday, I met with Sunghee in Strozier (which has now become our traditional time and meeting place). On this particular, I requested Sunghee to bring any materials she would like to work on so we can work on her schoolwork together, and also so I will have an idea of the exact level she is on, and what specifically she needs help in. She gave me one of her assignments which was to formulate a story using extremely complex vocabulary which included "interrogation," "suspect," "guilty" and "antiquated." Unfortunately she did not know a majority of the words nonetheless did she know how to apply them to a story, it was at this point I could see the extreme frustration foreign students must face every single day when placed in a language school. Also, it was difficult for me to help her with the assignment initially because I wanted to feed her the setences but I had to resist in order for her to develop an understanding of the material. After I explained each of the vocabulary words and used them in a sentence, I then tried to help her come up with a story to apply the vocabulary to, but she also had a hard time with that. After many frustrating and tedious minutes had passed, I finally thought of an activity. We played a game where I start to make up a story and then she will fill in what happens next and so on and so forth. It is like a game of ping pong where were kept bouncing ideas off of each other in order to get our creative juices flowing. This seemed to get a reaction out of her and she enjoyed the game thoroughly. From this I told her to apply this idea to her story when she does it for homework, she did not want me to help her with it anymore because I think she was embarrassed by her low level of understanding. After that we worked on one reading comprehension exercise from her TOEFL book. We tried to work through the passage but again she didn't really understand many of the words and I would have to go back and explain the entire story every couple of sentences, after that I tried to help her answer the questions. But some of the questions were extremely confusing, even to me! From this tutoring lesson, I have learned that I need to put aside my frustration and level with my tutee in order for anything to get accomplished.

Camille-CO3

Last Wednesday, I observed a level 3D Composition class taught by Olga. The class was extremely formal in its structure in which I observed many of the students were either texting or falling asleep. The lesson itself consisted of learning about argumentative essays in which the students read a long, scholarly essay and then had to establish the concept of opposing arguments. This prompt seems entirely too difficult for the students because Olga had to repeat herself many times and the students still did not understand what was being asked of them. After that, the students had to do an activity where an argument was prompted to them and then the students had to formulate an opposing argument, this was not clear to them either for when the class went over the activity, not one student had gotten it right. After that, the students were introduced to writing a thesis statement to prepare them for their essays then were given the homework assignment of developing an outline for their essay. With this observation, I learned that with every lesson, you must do a variety of comprehension checks to make sure the students are actively engaged, participating in the academic material and not invested in their cell phones. Also, I will make sure the students fully understand what is going on at all times and to make sure it is known to them to not be intimidated by the subject matter since I am there for them, to make sure they know the material. I believe if you reinforce this idea to them then the students will be more comfortable to talk inside the classroom.

Erin - TP 10

Tonight I met with Maria, as I usually do on Mondays. Today we studied English in one of the bedrooms because that's where the computer is. Sometime before, she had bought an 8-disc set from eurotalk.com, a site that I had never heard of before. She put in the first one, and I was fairly impressed. She wanted my help in figuring out how it worked because all of the directions were in English and were obviously too difficult for her to read. We did the first few lessons together: we started with numbers, which we went over several times, both for pronunciation on words such as 'thirteen' but also to clear up confusion, like that between the numbers 6 and 7. We then moved on to parts of the body; she was timid to do that section for some reason, but I told her it was absolutely necessary, since she is hoping to work as a physician's assistant soon. Some of the pronunciations were very difficult for her, and she got elbow and knee confused often, but I explained the pictures, and she replayed the game several times until she could name all of the parts of the body that were provided. Next, we looked at the lesson on the lesson on useful phrases; some were relatively useful, such as "help", or "where can I catch a taxi?", while it was lacking several other useful ones, such as, "Where is the bathroom?" I thought this phrase lesson left something to be desired and simply presented the phrases without explaining what they meant....which I guess would be impossible for the program to do, since its creators have no way of knowing who will buy it or what the customer's first language is. Simply presenting words, especially nouns, is okay because a picture is sufficient, but not in this case. Therefore, I explained the phrases to her in Spanish so that she could understand them, and we through them a couple more times, when she pronounced each on in English and then told me in Spanish what it meant so that I would know that she understood.
When dinner was done cooking, we went to the dining room, where she tried to explain to me in English what I was going to eat, since there were several things that I did not recognize. She also told me about her day and work and her neice's quinsenera. I gave her the verb chart that I had printed out for her; I explained how it works, and she was very grateful. On Wednesday, we will continue with the CD's...and I am hoping this practice will make her comfortable enough with English words so that we can move on to practicing for her practicum in a few weeks or months.

Francis- CP 8

This past Saturday was our turn to thank our Saudi and Kuwaiti CPs. Camille hosted a cook out for all of us. Nick and I split getting the hot dogs and burgers. It was very fun. Albraa showed me my name in Arabic. I've been practicing writting it myself. The first few times i wrote it from left to right....I felt really dumb when I realized, had a good laugh, and have since been practicing from right to left.

We had to be a bit careful with the meat the CPs brought because they can only eat meat that is made a specific way. It made me think of the differences and the concern that we had to go through, but I also think we were all more than willing to respect this.

We had a great time. We talked about our plans for the rest of the summer. Suzanne' trip to Argentina, for example. Abra showed me my name in Arabic. That was super fun. We also got to talk to a few Asian CIES students who joined us for the dinner. There were a lot of people, and we all got along very well. Carlos gave some guitar lessons outside.

This might be completely irrelevant to this blog, but I must mention the culinary amazingness that was the Dorito salad. Yeah...Dorito salad. It was GLORIOUS. XD

Francis- TP 6

I met with Kukit last Wednesday. He was going out of town that weekend so we had to reschedule out usual Friday sesions a bit earlier in the week.

To finish the activity we started the week before, i gave Kukit another chance to listen to the video and take notes. Since he had lost the notes from the previous session, we listened to the video more than I had planned. Kukit got all the main points on his notes and he was able to talk about all of them quite well. There were some mistakes, especially with Vs and Rs but I think we worked on the well. Hopefully, we will see results. We discussed our opinions about it. Kukit really likes technology so he did confess that his background with it helped him with the activity. We both agreed to look for reports that were less familiar to him.

After we finished the lesson, Kukit asked me to help him with a rough draft essay which had already been graded. We did not correct what his teacher marked. He asked me to help with his structure and his supporting points. Overall, these were very good. His points were not obviously clear because they were lost in some confusing sentence structures and wording. I helped him with all that before out hour was over. We agreed to meet this Friday at the usual time.

Carlos-TP7

On Friday, Carolina and i were scheduled to teach our Culture Class. When we first got there, we were a little nervous with how many students would be attending due to Friday prayers that all the Muslim students attend. We attempted to recruit a little bit during a goodbye get together for one of the CIES teachers before class began. Luckily, by class time, we had a full room of around 7 or 8 students of all nationalities.

Our class topic was focused on American Holidays, but with an emailed suggestion from Ramin, we changed class plans a little to include their native holidays as well. We posted pictures depicting various American holidays and asked them what they knew about them. After we let them describe the holidays in their own way, we added our own descriptions and additional information from an American point of view. After we went through each of our holidays, we asked them to explain their favorite native holidays. This was my favorite part because we were able to learn a lot about their customs and there truly was a cultural exchange between all of us. After their descriptions, we had them draw a picture depicting their own holidays so we could add them to the American holidays on the board.

Our game involved all of these holidays posted on the board. We had the class split up into two teams in which they would race to touch a holiday drawing on the board that coincides with a key word that Carolina and I would call out. This game was extremely entertaining and I was surprised at how competitive the students got.

Afterwards, we concluded with a general summarization of American holidays and some information on other holidays that we did not focus on during the lesson.

Carlos-CP9

Saturday afternoon, I was able to meet up with Abdel to work on his listening skills. He is trying his best to avoid a second CIES session because of finances so we are really trying to focus on his weakness of listening. We decided to go watch a movie so he could improve his listening skills. At this point, Abdel has improved drastically from his first weeks in the States but he still needs as much American interaction as possible to improve his listening. He calls me every day to talk and practice but I feel like sometimes this is not enough. He just moved in to a new apartment but he keeps to himself around his roomates. I have encouraged him to open up to them and explain that he is an English student. Being able to talk to his roomates and watch tv with them is a great opportunity to easily practice English, and I'm sure he'll make some new friends out of it.

We decided to watch Horrible Bosses. Abdel had his translator on his phone open the entire movie but he only had to look up 3 or 4 words throughout the entire thing. Afterwards, I was glad to find out that Abdel understood most of the dialogue and found the movie very entertaining. I hope to continue to help Abdel with his improvement in English so that he can perform at this best come TOEFL time.

Carlos-TP6

I met up with Mohammed before class on Thursday. He had emailed me about a speaking presentation that he has due near the end of the summer term. He is to speak in front of a class for ten minutes. He was quite nervous about this because he says he has a hard time speaking in front of a class for ten minutes in Arabic. When he told me what his topic was, I was quite confused. He was assigned the topic of "American Fortune Telling". It is to my understanding that there is not distinct American style of fortune telling, and that this practice is rooted from European gypsies of old. I brought my laptop and we decided to look into this together. We failed to find any distinct American style of fortune telling but I suggested some options for him. I told him he could focus on the business aspect of fortune telling, knowing that many areas have fortune telling shops set up in the states. I also suggested just breaking down fortune telling in general and talking about the history and different ways to tell fortunes. After all of this I apologized and told him to ask his teacher what would be the best way to approach this subject. We moved on and went on youtube to look for videos that he could use for the presentation. He was more comfortable now that we had his presentation a little more structured. I emailed him various links that we found so that he can work on his presentation at home.
After all this school talk, I still had 20 minutes to kill before class. We started talking sports and quickly began looking at youtube videos of our favorite athletes. Mohammed is a soccer fan and actually is recovering from a foot injury he suffered less than a year ago. I am a basketball fan and I shared with him my opinions. We are both avid sports fans and both have a level of respect for each of our preferred games. Talking sports with Mohammed was probably one of the most fun moments I've shared with him.